Warcraft producer explains why movie needs two years of post-production

Shooting on the long-anticipated Warcraft movie is underway and expected to conclude next month, according to a recent tweet by director Duncan Jones. With a scheduled release in March 2016, that leaves almost two years between the end of shooting and the film’s arrival in theaters. It also leaves some questions about the long post-production stage for the film.

In an interview with CraveOnline, Legendary Pictures CEO (and Warcraft producer) Thomas Tull addressed the unusually long post-production period for the project, which is expected to wrap up its shooting schedule in June. According to Tull, the film’s 2016 premiere speaks to the other films hitting theaters over the next two years as much as it does to any technical aspects of production.

“As you may have noticed, these next two years, there’s pretty big titles coming out,” said Tull. “We wanted to make sure that we got that right, but there are some sequences and some things that Duncan Jones has done that are truly on the cutting edge. You want to have plenty of time to make sure that we dial those in.”

“So by the time they get home and set up, it’ll be a little less than two years,” he explained. “It’ll be about 20 months, but we really want to take our time and get this right because the technology that’s employed really is some next generation stuff.”

The first image from the set of Warcraft recently made its way online, and while it offered few details about the look or tone of Jones’ vision for the world of Warcraft, it did offer some confirmation that shooting was underway and the creative team was hard at work on bringing the massively popular franchise to life on the screen. Tull was similarly vague about describing Jones’ approach to the film’s narrative.

“I would say it’s a linear story, but at the same time, it’s Duncan Jones,” he said. “That’s what we wanted, was again that different flare, not just straightforward fantasy and everything.”

Warcraft is currently scheduled for a March 11, 2016, premiere in theaters. The film is directed by Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) and stars Dominic Cooper, Ben Foster, Clancy Brown, Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Toby Kebbell, and Rob Kazinsky.